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Arctic Melt, by Andy Armstrong, NOAA

Caution

All technical information and scientific data released by US Government agencies (e.g., NASA, EPA…) are subject to sudden variation because of political expediency.
This caution also extends to the fidelity of the information provided by UN organizations (e.g., FAO, WHO…).

WARNING!

Point of No Return:
Unless global energy consumption is reduced immediately to below 60EJ, mechanisms that are destroying ecosystems including ozone holes, global heating, extreme climate events... reach the point of no return, overwhelm the life support systems, render most cities uninhabitable by 2015 or earlier.

Four protestors, including two with bullet wounds, were admitted to Chittagong Medical College Hospital A nurse said.

Bangladesh’s garment industry employls about 2.5 million workers, or 40 percent of the industrial workforce, and accounts for about 80 percent of the country’s export earnings. The average garment worker earn a basic minimum wage of about 25 dollars a month.

Bangladeshi households spend nearly 70 percent of their income on food. Prices for rice, the country’s staple food have doubled in the past 12 months mainly because of floods last summer and a major cyclone that caused severe damage to the crops in November.

Unions have demanded a major increase in salaries, saying the existing basic payment fixed in late 2006 has become redundant due to rocketing prices of food and other commodities over the past year.

In April, at least 20,000 protesting garment workers clashed with police and 50 were injured.

Bangladeshi demonstrators protesting against rising food and fuel prices on the outskirts of Dhaka in April, 2008. Police clashed with thousands of garment workers in southwest Bangladesh Sunday during fresh protests over low wages and soaring food prices. (Image may be subject to copyright. see MSRB Fair Use Notice.

Food Riot in Kenya

About a thousand Kenyan demonstrators protesting against rising food prices were assaulted by the riot police who fired teargas to disperse them on Saturday.

Widespread food shortages have led to skyrocketing food prices amid political corruption. Annual inflation rose by an average 24.2 percent in April and May.

“The government must subsidize the cost of food, it is not fair for the poor to be suffering with high food prices yet the government has not increased salaries,” said one of the organizers.

Disputed presidential election has also triggered violent clashes across Kenya killing 1,600 people and displacing about one half of a million people since December 2007.

More than 40 percent of Japanese households hit hard by consumer price rises

More than 40 percent of households in Japan have been “significantly affected” by recent increases in the price of daily necessities, a survey announced by the Cabinet Office has shown.

The survey for March showed that 42.4 percent of people serving as monitors in the survey answered that their household finances had been significantly affected by price increases — 5.2 percentage points higher than the figure for the previous month.

It was the first time for the figure of those significantly affected by higher prices to exceed 40 percent, showing that escalating costs of food and other items are putting pressure on household finances.

In the survey, people across Japan designated as national lifestyle monitors investigated the price of 17 types of products sold at stores, and answered a questionnaire. The survey started in January, and 1,625 people responded to the February and March polls.

The survey showed that the biggest price increases were in products such as pot noodles and spaghetti. While the price of tissue paper, gasoline, kerosene and other items went down after earlier price rises last year, more than half of the surveyed products rose in price.

Shaping up to the reality?

Sumo wrestlers, some weighing as much as 280kg, gather in a circle around the Referee in the ring-entering ceremony. Sumo wrestlers eat 5 meals a day including more than 20 eggs for breakfast!

The combined percentage of people who answered that they were “significantly affected,” “affected to a certain degree,” or who would say they were affected if they had to give a yes or no answer surged to 96.7 percent.
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